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| | (Post a comment) » 3D Performance with Far Cry - Part 1 ATICryTek's DX9 shooter, Far Cry, is earning rave reviews from game publications worldwide for its exciting game play and solid AI. Of course, its 2.0 pixel and vertex shaders are dropping jaws as well. One drawback of this cutting edge title however is its demanding system requirements. In our 3D Performance With Far Cry article we explore the performance of this title with 10 of ATI's DX9 offerings. Which card offers the best performance for your budget? Find out now! |  Previous news article | Back to main news | Next news article  |
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#20
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Author:
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Trogdor at 06:21pm 04/28/2004
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Response to #16:
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I don't know that it's really that important for future games.
Basically, it helps at 1600x1200 with 4XAA because you suddenly use
up a ton of memory for all the frame information.
1600x1200x4 (4 bytes = 32-bit) = 7,680,000 bytes of RAM for the one
frame, plus that again for the Z-buffer (I think), and then you need
another copy for the AA data when using 2XAA, or two copies of the
data for doing 4XAA. With double-buffering, you have *two*
instances of each item. That means that you have six of those
1600x1200x32-bit frames for 2XAA or eight of them for 4XAA.
If I've got all that correct, then enabling 2XAA at 1600x1200x32-bit
uses 46,080,000 bytes of RAM, while bumping it up to 4XAA uses
61,440,000 bytes. Ouch!
Since there isn't a performance difference between the 128 and 256
MB cards at 2XAA, we can then conclude that Far Cry uses
approximately 80 MB of textures and data at the highest settings.
More precisely, it uses less than 88 MB of textures and more than 70
MB, since that's where we see the difference between the 128 MB and
256 MB cards.
Given the number of cards that still ship with 128 MB, and many
still have 64 MB, I wouldn't expect most games to dramatically raise
the amount of video RAM they require. They might support higher
resolution textures with more video RAM, but the difference between
512x512 textures and 1024x1024 textures isn't that big, considering
that most textures cover less than 512x512 pixels of the screen.
/Dissertation. The Burninator is back from vacation. :)
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#19
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Author:
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egglick at 05:42am 04/27/2004
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Comment:
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I guess nobody reads things that're more than a few days old.
I seemed to find a (mostly) happy medium with everything set to
"Very High" while Texture Quality is just set to
"High" at 1280x960. This is with AA off.
There ARE a few situations where slowdowns will still occur though.
One place in particular that comes to mind is on the level
"Pier" after you've crossed the river on the Hang glider
and come up to the first lookout tower. At that point, you're
looking down at an incredible amount of area, but still....
Does anybody know of some sort of a fix for this?? It mainly occurs
when looking through the binoculars or zooming up with a weapon. I
still don't feel that with my system I should be having those sorts
of problems with AA completely off.
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#18
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Author:
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Anonymous at 11:03am 04/23/2004
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Response to #14:
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I too was upset with the game play when running at very high
settings, I can't even have AA on because my game play slows down so
much. Far Cry seems to run fine at 1024x768 with some items set at
very high and some items set at high. I have a pretty good system
P4 2.5 1G Mem, 9800 pro 128, What card did they program this game
for? What card can run at very high frame rights? that is what I was
hopeing this article would answer.
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#17
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Author:
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Anonymous at 10:06pm 04/22/2004
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Response to #15:
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hahaah, totally, i thought the exact same thing. Why get exited
about a 6 fps increase over the 128 meg card when no one would
actually play with that kind of fps.
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#16
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Author:
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egglick at 08:07pm 04/22/2004
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Response to #15:
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I'm not really annoyed by it, I think it's slightly interesting. It
shows that in the future you'll probably wanna make sure you get at
least a 256MB card because it will likely be a factor in the newer,
more demanding games.
For right now it's not such a big deal. Like they said, you need to
crank it up to 1600x1200 with some stuff turned on to be able to
notice it. Even if it is faster in that situation, I think the
framerate is too low on even the 256mb card for it to be playable.
Considering the massive price difference between the two versions,
I'm still content that I made the right choice.
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#15
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Author:
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Anonymous at 10:40am 04/22/2004
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Comment:
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Am I the only 128Mb 9800 Pro owner who was somewhat annoyed by your
exclaiming the greatness of 256Mb over 128Mb? Who the hell wants to
play with 20fps at 1600x1200 with everything turned on? When I
looked the benchmarks you were displaying I was thinking to myself,
"boy, am I glad I bought mine on sale when I did and didn't
wait a few more months for a beefier card that wouldn't benefit me
AT ALL". You do acknowledge the uselessness of the extra RAM
at the end of the article so maybe you aren't totally out of touch,
but then why go ga-ga during the meat of the piece?
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#14
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Author:
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egglick at 11:35pm 04/21/2004
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Comment:
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I get strange behavior when running everything at the "Very
High" setting. When I have AA turned on, the game will play
smooth as silk, but then I'll walk into a certain area and things
will suddenly come to a grinding halt. Also on the "Very
High" setting.......even with AA off and at 1024x768, when I
use the binoculars on a group of men talking, things will also slow
down dramatically.
I'm not sure what's causing this, but when I go down to the
"High" setting all of it seems to disappear. I've got a
fairly high end system and don't feel I should be having these kinds
of problems.
Any thoughts on this??
P4 2.8C 875P 1GB RAM
AIW 9800Pro 128MB 4.3 Cat
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#13
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Author:
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knyghtryda at 11:09pm 04/21/2004
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Response to #7:
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Same here. I thought I paid alot for that card when I bought it...
but it was definitely worth it compared to whats being sold now.
Now I'm running it heavily OCed (415/344) with the VGA silencer and
the thing plays Far Cry at 1280x1024 great.
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#12
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Author:
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GX-Brandon at 11:06pm 04/21/2004
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Comment:
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It sounds like you want us to do all the thinking for you. :) I've
always been the type that would rather have all the data up front
(or at least, as much as feasibly possible) then come to my own
conclusions based on that data, hence the reason why we include so
many cards and resolutions in our articles. Besides, the last time
we gave a recommendation (Quake 3=100 fps), we got flamed for months
because of it.
I think the "ideal frame rate" will vary based on the type
of game (i.e. story-driven titles such as Half-Life you may be
willing to sacrifice fps for image quality, whereas in Q3 you really
want more fps rather than IQ) and more importantly, the tastes and
preferences of the individual.
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#11
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Author:
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egglick at 10:31pm 04/21/2004
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Comment:
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It would be more useful if they included a recommendation for each
card that balances quality and framerate.
If not that, you guys could at least include what you feel the
minimum ideal framerate is, so we can take that number and then look
at the charts.
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